Jaksic ready to take Michigan high school basketball by storm

When Miroslav Jaksic played senior basketball for the Herman Green Griffins as a gangly kid in Grade 10, height was about the only reason he stood out.

Now, as a 17-year-old senior for Walled Lake Western, the power forward commands attention for reasons way beyond his six-foot-11 frame.

In a recent pre-season exhibition against Detroit Pershing (the No. 1-ranked high school team in Michigan according to the Detroit News), Jaksic threw down a monster game, scoring 35 points, grabbing eight rebounds and blocking four shots.

He dunked four times and balanced a power show inside with a three-for-four performance from beyond the three-point line.

“I was waiting on a game and a chance to do that,” said Jaksic, who left Windsor to play for Walled Lake prior to the start of his Grade 11 season. “It showed me all the hard work is starting to pay off.”

A member of the 2011 Canadian national cadet team, Jaksic endured a rough introduction to American basketball last year.

He suffered a stress fracture in his right foot just before the season and never did get untracked.

This past summer, he trained back home in Windsor at Jamie Stewart’s Elite Basketball Academy and had a successful AAU season with a Michigan club.

“It was an incredible performance against Pershing,” Stewart said. “Based on his improvement from June to the end of August, we were all expecting it. By the end of summer, his game was back and now he’s taken it to the next level.”

Walled Lake opens its regular season tonight against Plymouth.

“This is a very big year for me personally and for us as a team,” Jaksic said. “Last year was a tough year for me. I had the stress fracture to start and I had a hard time adapting to a new environment. I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to and neither did the team. It’s still on my mind this year.”

NCAA Division I schools are starting to take notice of Jaksic, including Eastern Michigan, University of Detroit Mercy and even the University of Michigan has given him a look.

“His stock really rose this summer,” said Stewart, who said Jaksic is ranked fifth among Michigan high school players and among the top 150 across the U.S.

“The sky is the limit,” Stewart said. “He still has a long way to go but he’s matured tremendously over the past year.”

Rather than test the NCAA recruiting waters after this season, Jaksic will spend a year at a prep school or back here in Windsor before joining the freshman class of 2014.

“He can shoot the three like a guard, he can put it on the floor and he has all the moves in the post,” Stewart said. “But he’s still a couple of years away.”

The main thing Jaksic needs to add is weight. He hovers around 200 pounds but Stewart hopes to bump that to 220 by 2014.

“He needs to get stronger,” Stewart said. “Miro is known around the United States. They’ve seen this skinny kid with all these immense skills. He’s back on the radar of Team Canada.”

Basketball Canada invited Jaksic and nine other junior prospects to participate in the NBA America’s training camp sponsored by Nike and run by NBA legends and coaches in Puerto Rico last October.

A big year at Walled Lake will no doubt lead to an invitation to try out for Canada’s junior team next summer.

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